Mid-Atlantic Codecamp Saturday Coming Up!

If you haven’t been to a code camp, you’re really missing out on a fantastic opportunity.  Where else can you find a full day of FREE programmer training, FREE food and s.w.a.g. in addition to hundreds of like-minded professionals to network with and learn from?

Coming up on Saturday, May 17th, we get not one but TWO code camps within easy driving distance of beautiful downtown Delaware.  To our north is the PhillyDotNet Codecamp 2008.2, to be held at DeVry University in Fort Washington, PA – http://www.phillydotnet.org/.  On the same day, to our west, is the Northern Virginia (NOVA) Codecamp 2008.01 – held at the Microsoft offices in Reston, Virginia – http://novacodecamp.org/.  Both events are offering top-notch training but I can’t say they’re absolutely free…it’ll cost me about a tank off gas ($50-60) to make either one.  I can’t complain one bit though, I’ve been to a few codecamps in the last year or so and I always walk away full of new ideas and ready to put some new tech into play.

If you’re thinking about going, I suggest you register now because these events fill up quickly.  I’m already signed up for one of them, so maybe I’ll see you there.

Doug White

M.A.C. World Orlando???

I teased Joe Healy (aka DevFish at DevFish.NET) when I first saw the announcement of a "Mother of All Camps" in Orlando.  I shot him an email asking whether they would consider naming the event "MAC World Orlando"?  It seems like the perfect way for a "Developer Evangelist" like Joe to rope in some turtle-neck-wearing converts.  They’d all wander in looking for Steve Jobs to announce the iToaster (or whatever Apple has up their sleeve these days) and Steve Balmer could be on hand instead to give ’em all a big hug and showing them towards the Silverlight…  ;?)

My hat is off to all those involved in getting the "Florida Tweener" event together.  I guess they figured heck…we’ve got the Orlando Convention Center for two weeks in a row for Tech Ed 2008…lots of empty rooms over the weekend in-between Dev vs. ITPro…let’s make use of all that space that’s already paid for.   Sessions planned as I type this are:

For those not familiar with the change…Microsoft’s Tech Ed 2008 is split into two tracks this year.  It used to be only one week and it covered both Developer and IT Pro topics.  This year, week #1 is geared towards Developers and runs June 3-6.  Week #2 is geared to the IT Pros and runs from June 10-13.  I hit Tech Ed 2007 and I can definitely see where they were getting such a massive number of attendees that a means of paring down the numbers was needed.  Additionally, by knocking down the sheer numbers involved, opportunities to have Tech Ed in other cities would also be possible.  I’m guessing that Orlando is one off the few places in the world that can accommodate such a huge event. 

I’m conflicted about this notion of splitting the event up.  As the one-man-band in my department, I am responsible for pretty much anything that even remotely relates to my servers – be it Dev, IT Pro, Database, etc…  Having both Dev and IT Pro events occurring at the same time, as they did in times past, I had a plethora of sessions to choose from and all of the relevant players in-house should I have an issue that cross the Dev/ITPro divide.  It also meant that I had to choose one session over about 4-5 others that I was also interested in for any given time slot.  The best-case scenario training-wise this year would be for me to attend both weeks.  That way I’d get all my bases covered.  This presents some hurdles though.  Attending both weeks would mean that I’d be away from work and home for two weeks in a row (wifey ain’t gonna like that!).  It also means that the cost of attendance jumps from the ~$3,000-4,000 that I budgeted for the conference fees, travel and hotel costs to ~$5,000-6,000+ to cover two weeks worth of hotel costs and admission to both events.  Ouch!!! 

Now, with the Florida Tweener event in the mix, I get yet another choice.  It looks like top-notch offerings that pretty much cover the spectrum.  Hmmm…maybe I’ll skip Tech Ed and just fly down to Orlando for the Tweener event.  Estimated cost ~ $600 for hotels and travel.  Now that’s more like it…

Doug White

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BARACK

This is funny!  Pretty much covers the debacle that is leading up to the Democratic primary…

<political_rant>

While we’re on the topic of politics…(my, what a great segway the video provides)…  Does anybody else think that the entire concept of a "Superdelegate" is quite…how shall we say…un-democratic???  Just the thought that a back-door of sorts to circumvent the will of the people just rubs me the wrong way.  One person – one vote.  What’s this mess about super-votes that count more than others?

Since I’m ranting political today…one other thing has been bothering me lately.  Why don’t Senators (or any other politicians) have to resign from their posts (ie: quit) when they decide that they want to run for President?  If I wanted to run for President, I’d have to quit my job and hit the campaign trail.  Why don’t they?  Are they so much more special and entitled than I?  Don’t even try feeding me the baloney that "they’re still doing their job" – like they’re just tele-commuting and still giving the voters of their fair states the time and effort that they said they would when they took office.  My take on it is that the only one who should be able to run for the office of President or Senator or Congress and not have to step down would be the incumbents themselves…for what I think are rather obvious reasons.  If you’re not the incumbent and you’re wanting to run for office – quit your job and let somebody step in that can do the duties.

</political_rant>

Doug White

p.s. – I am not a supporter of either of the main players in the video.  Please don’t consider this my endorsement of either ;?)

Hummingbird Video

We just put out the hummingbird feeders over the weekend and we’re already getting customers.  I saw this little guy coming and going on the feeder so I broke out the mini-tripod and started filming using my Aiptek A-HD 720P High Definition Camcorder.  It does a nice job – recording at 1280×720 resolution at 30fps directly to an SD card.  Pop the SD card out, copy the MOV file off and you’re ready to start uploading.  Where else can you get an HD camcorder for $130 ???  I saw it at Sears in a blisterpack while I was scoping out the $1000 camcorders up at eye level in the displays.

I took it to Hawaii with me to take videos as well as using it as a 5MP digital camera in-between videos.  It takes fantastic videos with a couple of caveats.  First, at 30fps, the video can get a tad jerky when you’re moving the camera around with any speed.  That gets a tad disconcerting.  If you’re panning it around slowly, you’re golden.  There’s a slightly more expensive version of this – the Action HD 1080p (~ $200 I believe) that does 1080p at 30fps AND 720p at 60fps.  I’m not sure whether it’s any better with motion video, but hey, for that price it’s worth testing it out.  The second issue was no optical zoom and no video stabilization.  the Action HD 1080p has a 3x optical zoom, but no image stabilization.  So keep that in mind before you commit.  And lastly, if you add an 8GB SD card, you can record for up to 8 hours I believe.  However, the battery will only last for 1-2 hours.  I tried plugging a USB cable into it to run it from an external battery pack, but it won’t record when it’s plugged in that way.  It just goes into charge mode.  If you’re wanting to record for any extended period and you opt for this camera – invest in a spare battery pack.

Doug White

Cradlepoint Travel Routers

Last fall, some co-workers and I headed up to ReMix in Boston.  We checked into the oh-so-affordable hotel and attempted to strategize on how we were going to get online to check on the servers back home.  I was running Vista on my laptop, and my co-workers were running XP and OS-X respectively.  We started to brainstorm as to how we could plug in our Sprint Mogul phone and share out the wi-fi goodness for all of us to share.  If only we’d had one of the Cradlepoint travel routers, it would have made things soooo easy.

I first heard about one of these on the Daily Gizwiz podcast (#542).   A handy solution to either sharing out your phone or cellular USB modem’s high-speed internet connection to yourself and your peeps (companions).  If you happen to be one of those hotels that provides internet, but it’s only a hardline connection, the CTR-350 Cellular Travel Router can also accept an ethernet connection and share that out.

The "gadget" covered in the podcast was the Personal Hotspot (PHS300) – which:

• Runs on a built-in Li-Ion battery (which also charges your phone and/or powers the USB cellular modem)
• Serves out 802.11 B & G wi-fi w/ WEP/WPA options
• Acts as a firewall
• You can also get a spare battery to keep the wi-fi goodness flowing

Cradlepoint also has the CTR-350 Cellular Travel Router which:

• Does all of the above (except it requires AC power, not battery powered)
• Accepts a 10/100 ethernet cable as well

And then, for the truly hard-core traveller who wants to cover a much wider area, Cradlepoint makes the MBR1000 802.11 N Mobile Broadband Router.

Sweet concepts all.  So many gadgets, so little paycheck…

Doug White

Google Earth 4.3

Just before Earth Day, Google released an updated version of their Google Earth application.  For those not familiar with it, you install a GIS-type application and it gives you a virtual globe with user-selectable layers. 

New in this version (from the Google Earth website):

• "Photo-realistic buildings from cities around the world"
• "Dawn to dusk views with the Sunlight feature"
• "Sweep navigation from outer space to street-level"

BEFORE you click over to the site and install it…bear in mind that they’re at it again (see my Toolbar Rant) – make sure you UNCLICK the checkbox if you’re not wanting them to slip the Google Toolbar onto your browser.

Really useful stuff attached to live web services including weather, traffic, global awareness and more (see image below).

Definitely worth a look-see.

Doug White

Wallets with Eyes

Are you starting to feel like you’ve been boiled down to being simply a wallet with eyes?

Everybody and everything is being geared towards capturing your eyes and trying to use them as a gateway to your wallet.  Adsense, billboards, commercials, social networking sites, and yes…shockingly enough…even my wife’s magazines.  Have you looked at one of those lately?  I leafed through a couple the other day waiting for my doctors appointment.  (Don’t get me started about ALWAYS waiting around for my doctors "appointment").  Page after page of advertisements and every 3rd or 4th page might have a paragraph on how to trim up for summer or the like.

I’ve always hoped that I was greater than the sum of my parts…but the only parts everybody seems to be interested in these days are my eyes and my wallet…well, maybe my right arm and hand so I can get my wallet out of my pocket…

Even all these cool FREE services like this Live Spaces page and my Live mail account…all courtesy of somebody in marketing that thinks that since you’re reading this…that flashy banner ad is burning an indelible impression on your brain…you can’t resist…you must buy whatever product appears at the top of the screen…

Yeah right.

Doug White

Enough with the Browser Toolbar Assaults!!!

<rant>
I am so fed up with having to remember to UNCLICK all of these stupid checkboxes to signify that I DON"T want to install the wonderful Browser Toolbar add-on for {insert vendor here} everytime I have to patch an existing application or install a new one!!!!  UNCLICKED should be the DEFAULT!

NO I don’t want the Google Toolbar installed on my system when I install a Java patch…NO I don’t want the Yahoo Toolbar installed…NO NO NO NO!!!

Come on guys.  It’s a cheap and dirty trick to tuck toolbar add-ons, or any other app for that matter, into a patch or an installer…hoping to sneak it onto a users system without their knowledge and thus their knowledgeable consent.  You know you’re doing it…you know it’ deceptive and sneaky…and it’s gotta stop!  I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to sit down at a users computer and just marvel at how they are able to get any browsing done.  They’ve got three or four toolbars from the various "helpful vendors" out there that have duped them into installing their toolbar into the mix.  The top half of the screens are nothin’ but toolbars!!!

I spend the next half-hour or so uninstalling all of these spawns of the devil and if I’m lucky, I can weed out MOST of the crap they’ve brought along for the ride.  Cut it out!
</rant>

We now return you to your normally scheduled blog reading…

Doug White